Whitechapel tube station

Whitechapel is a London Underground station in Whitechapel in the East London borough of Tower Hamlets. It is located on Whitechapel Road (A11) and is in Zone 2.

The station is on the Hammersmith & City and District lines between Aldgate East and Stepney Green. The station was also the northern terminus of the now non-operational East London Line, with Shadwell being the next station south.

History

Whitechapel station was originally opened in 1876 when the mainline East London Railway (ELR, now the East London Line) was extended north from Wapping to Liverpool Street station. The ELR owned the tracks and stations but did not operate trains. From the beginning various railway companies provided services through Whitechapel including the London, Brighton & South Coast Railway (LB&SCR), the London, Chatham & Dover Railway (LC&DR) and the South Eastern Railway (SER). Later the Great Eastern Railway (GER) added services.

On 6 October 1884 the Metropolitan District Railway (MDR, now the District Line) opened a new station adjacent to the deeper ELR station as the terminus of an extension from Mansion House (part of the extension also formed the final section of the Circle Line). The new station was given the name Whitechapel (Mile End). The ELR passenger service between Whitechapel and Liverpool Street was withdrawn in 1885. The station received its present name on 13 November 1901.On 1 February 1902 the MDR station was temporarily closed for rebuilding. It reopened on 2 June 1902 when the MDR opened the Whitechapel & Bow Railway, a joint venture with the London Tilbury & Southend Railway (LT&SR). The new extension ran eastwards to Bromley-by-Bow where it joined the LT&SR's tracks. MDR services then operated regularly to Upminster and as far as Southend-on-Sea in the summer.

The MDR tracks were electrified in 1905 and electric trains replaced steam trains. Services going eastwards were cut back to the limit of electrification at East Ham and later re-extended to Barking in 1908 and Upminster 1932. [Rose, D., "The London Underground: A diagrammatic history", (1999)] On 3 December 1906 the Metropolitan Railway (MR, now the Metropolitan Line/Hammersmith & City Line) extended its service to Whitechapel as the eastern terminus of its service.

The MR also ran trains over the southern section of ELR via a connection (the St Mary's curve) between the MDR tracks west of Whitechapel and the ELR tracks north of Shadwell station. When, in 1913, the tracks of the ELR were electrified it ended services to the MDR station and extended its ELR service through Whitechapel to Shoreditch (then the terminus of the line but now closed) The change of service took place on 31 March 1913.

On 30 March 1936 the Metropolitan Line began operating again through the District Line station as far as Barking. The Metropolitan Line service is now operated as the Hammersmith & City Line.

On 25 March 1995 the East London Line was closed to allow repair works on the Thames Tunnel. General renovations and new signalling works were undertaken at the same time. The line reopened south from Whitechapel on 25 March 1998 and north from Whitechapel on 27 September 1998.

In preparation for the future extension of the East London Line to Dalston and Islington, the line north of Whitechapel to Shoreditch was closed on 9 June 2006. Services to Shoreditch had previously been run during peak hours and Sunday mornings only and services have been replaced by a bus link.

tation today

The station consists of six platforms in open cuttings north of Whitechapel Road. The Hammersmith & City and District Lines have two eastbound and two westbound, and East London Line has one north and southbound (which closed at end of service on 22nd December 2007). The East London Line tracks are at the eastern end of the station and are in a deeper cutting.

Whitechapel acts as the eastern terminus for some Hammersmith & City Line trains, particularly at weekends and outside peak hours.

Future plans

Work on the extension of the East London Line is underway and the line closed on 22 December 2007 and will not reopen until June 2010 when new tracks on a new alignment will connect to a disused North London Railway viaduct from Shoreditch to Dalston. It will then become part of the new London Overground network. Temporary bus services will operate during the closure. Whitechapel will then have the odd situation where the London Underground part of the station is above the London Overground part, though this also occurs with the Central line platforms at Stratford.

Crossrail line 1 will call at Whitechapel, forking into two eastbound branches after the station. Preliminary work has begun to create the interchange between Crossrail and the East London Line with subways being constructed.

t Mary's Curve

The St Mary's curve connection between the District Line track and the East London Line was used for passenger traffic until 1941 but was subsequently only used to transfer empty trains to and from the other sub-surface lines. The curve was often lit and could easily be seen from the left-hand side of East London Line trains entering Whitechapel station from the south, prior to refurbishment of the East London line commencing late December 2007. Also just west of Whitechapel is the former St Mary's (Whitechapel Road) tube station, one of the many closed London Underground stations.

Local sights

Nearby places of interest include the Royal London Hospital, the Blind Beggar public house, and the former Wickham's department store. There are also many tours in this area focusing on the Jack the Ripper murders.

References

External links

* [http://photos.ltmcollection.org London's Transport Museum Photographic Archive]
** ltmcollection|85/9872185.jpg|Whitechapel station booking hall, 1927
** ltmcollection|z9/i00008z9.jpg|East London Line platform, 1955
** ltmcollection|lw/i00001lw.jpg|District line platforms, 1957
* [http://www.trainweb.org/tubeprune/route%20and%20track%20diagrams.htm#Whitechapel%20Area Tube Professionals' Rumour Network - Track Diagram showing layout of station and St. Mary's curve]
* [http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?hl=en&ie=UTF8&z=17&ll=51.519539,-0.059942&spn=0.002717,0.010815&t=h&om=0 Google Maps - Whitechapel station satellite view]

Gallery

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Future Development

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